The evaluation of forage nutritive quality by microdigestion

Abstract

Ruminal microdigestion of test forage samples was run concurrently with conventional digestion trials in an experiment devised to evaluate microdigestion as a technique for assessing the nutritive quality of forages common to southern Australia. Microdigestion was found to be closely associated with in vivo digestibility. Significant variation in microdigestion estimates was attributed to basal diet, test forage, pouch fabric and individual sheep; microdigestion differences of the order of two to three units were detectable. It is suggested that the microdigestion technique offers potential scope for providing unbiased assessment of forage nutritive quality under field conditions.